Check-in with Nic - Part 1, the American side

If you know Nic at all, you probably understand that he's a walking encyclopedia for both relevant and irrelevant information spanning all sorts of subjects.  It's been just about a year since I spoke with him for this blog and there have been quite a few developments relating to his field(s) of expertise (particularly international relations) which I wanted to get his feedback on since people on both sides of the world have been asking.  

I also wanted to give him an opportunity to check-in on a personal level, but he is far less analytical on that topic.

Alex:  So, is there anything that's struck you as "Oh my gosh, I need to tell people about this thing"?

Nic:  No, we've already talked about the bread.  I have adapted to liking the cheese too.  I think it will be hard to go back to American cheese when I go visit, but I think that you can live without European cheese if you haven't already acclimated yourself to it.

But really, I think we already talked about the overall sense of safety, both in a physical sense, a social sense, a financial sense... the general idea that society here is better run and that your neighbors are there for you more, that people are less unstable and prone to irrational action...

**pause while neighborhood kids spontaneously came by themselves to pick up our kids to play**

Alex:  Anyway, I think you were talking about how it's safer here...

Nic:  *laughs*  But I don't think anything has been revealed to me between 12 and 17 months that is striking, most of those differences were obvious within the first few months.

Alex:  Okay.  So how does it feel to be looking back on the US from afar, particularly now that we're just a few months away from a major election?  We were just asked the other day by our neighbor about voting, and I'm sure you've had other conversations similar to that?

Nic:  I think that most Europeans are still in denial about America and it's a very wilfull denial.  This is to say that they feel overwhelmed and disillusioned and kind of shocked and in disbelief about America and, therefore, they tuned America out and are still tuning America out.  So the conversations I have are very limited.  They're aware of the stakes, but also very aware that things in the US are literally unbelievable and things that have become normalized for people living in America are just inconceivable here.  

Tuning it out also seems to be what Americans are doing right now, so in that regard it's not much different from my conversations with American friends.  This is predictable because this is how most people have lived through turbulent times through the rest of history, where you don't feel the turbulence beyond your capacity because you remove yourself from it even if you're there.

Alex:  Do you feel like your reasons for leaving the US that we discussed last time have come to fruition as you anticipated?  Or do you feel like you've had to adjust that list at all?

Nic:  Hmmm... I'm going to use an analogy here because it seems the easiest way to describe it.  I feel that I have identified a tide, a system-level and predictable fluctuation/variation/track of the baseline context for how players in the system are going to operate - the degradation of norms, the increase in minority power and minority decision making, the increase in tribalism and animosity, etc.  I feel that I have not seen anything htat has challenged my assessment of the tide.

However, I have been pleasantly surprised by how well the Biden administration has managed to swim against that tide and made progress that I wouldn't have thought possible given the circumstances.  We've seen a ton of bipartisan legislation, from Ukraine and Israel, infrastructure, huge investments in green energy - really cool stuff.  And also the forestalling of the worst excesses of the right-wing, helped by the really fragile majority they have in the House and the fact that MAGA Republicans keep shooting themselves in the foot in terms of their strategic interests.

But I don't feel that the underlying dynamics are being touched, so I still see a rising tide.  There are steps in the right direction, but it's like the saying that generals are always fighting the last war, not the current one.  That's definitely happening, legislators are legislating the last crisis and not the next one.  For example, we have now sufficiently solved the 2021 attempted coup over the 2020 election, but that was never going to be repeated in the exact way and your'e not addressing other problems. 

Fortunately, the Supreme Court didn't rule in favor of North Carolina in the Moore case which would have allowed the State to be the only entity that could set elections.  If that had been upheld, democracy would have been over the next morning.  It only takes one or two states to say that they can assign their own electoral votes for it to be over.

We've forestalled some of the worst possible outcomes, but we haven't addressed the structural issues such as the imbalance in the Senate.  Over the next 20 years, population shifts are going to mean that Republicans are going to have a majority in the US Senate almost for sure.  We haven't addressed redistricting and gerrymandering to have fairly drawn out congressional maps.  

One interesting thing is that we're seeing in the national polls that the election is basically tied, but the reality is that if the election was held today Donald Trump would win with near 100% certainty.  This is because he's ahead by significant enough margins in crucial states, like Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania.  So we saw in 2000 and we saw in 2016 that the Electoral College goes differently than the popular vote, and it's honestly an old enough issue that it's easy for us to kind of brush it off.  "Yeah, it's not very fair but it's how the system works," or whatever.  It's fine when it's a fluke, but once it starts to systemically advantage one side and it becomes a permanent fixture that it becomes problematic.  Republicans have only won the popular vote for the presidency one time in the last 24 years, and that's a big problem.  It's looking likely that they'll lose the popular vote but win the Electoral College for the 4th time in American history, but the 3rd time in the last 6 elections.

I mean, what's fundamentally not changing is the fact that Americans see the other side as the enemy rather than the opposition and the norms and rule following among legislative authorities and governing bodies are deteriorating.  This is exacerbated by Trump, who is running again and the incentives of the political system are for the minority party to seize more power when it has power so that it can entrench itself.  I assessed that a year ago and I haven't seen anything that's changed.